


Fallen

by hotaryu



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/M, Thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2748740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotaryu/pseuds/hotaryu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a matter of belief - and remembering for Touka. Kaneki may be a fool but she knows better to believe in him</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallen

It’s the moon shrouded in the blanket of clouds, the wind that howls his name. It’s the hollowness of the blank space where he used to be. Her belief shadows the space where his tracks are left, where his flaws become graces and ever since it’s what resounds in her head. After all, she is a survivor and to survive, she has to carry what is left.

When sometimes she’s terrified that one day she will wake up not remembering what his voice sounds like, or what his hair color was, she looks around the rooms and when she spots his books, it all pours down from her blood vessels to the beat of her manic heart. He is alive, she tells him. Signs might come and go but Touka knows better than to underestimate Kaneki. Kaneki could be foolish, only for the sake of protecting others. It’s always been his perfect imperfection and it pains her always so. It pains her still, but it keeps her moving still because pain is pain and happiness is another thing, and duty propels her to keep on moving on and on. She forgives but she swears she will not forget.

He wanted to save everyone. Everyone, even her, even if she had been rash and all those things… Sometimes, she wished she’d carry his burden. If he let me carry his burdens, would the result still be the same? He has unraveled and disappeared and her belief remains to suffice. Time is supposed to heal all words. Time is supposed to test you. Touka takes the challenge - she goes to school, she studies at her algebra and science and courses. This is what Kaneki would have wanted and done, and her duty is doubled out of what she feels for him. This is what Kaneki could have done. Kaneki deserved to finish his education. For him, Touka will go on. That is her duty and her new mission and she doesn’t falter in it.

"You still think he’s alive?" It is the question that keeps her nodding yes all the time. They will prod at her, they know this too well. They should know better than to question her. Touka Kirishima doesn’t falter. Touka Kirishima is unbent, unbowed and unbroken. Touka Kirishima knows this. She is fire and sword and steel, controlled but filled with this conviction that will take away anything from anyone. She is the poison in his veins, he is the blank space that used to and still fills her head and the hole in her heart. Kaneki is the hole her father left, Kaneki is the poison that dwells within her sentiments.

That is it and that’s her decision. Is it enough that this is the first thing that springs in her head when she drinks alone a hot cup of coffee and sees the white rabbit keychain he bought for her? Her teeth ground, and suddenly, it's _alive_ and then she feels numb, like a band aid, like a skeleton. It's not pretty, but she's never meant to be pretty. Is it enough? As much as her sensibility will compel her to accept things and the high probability rate of his death, she just finds herself shaking her head at the plethora of doubt she has with his death. Dead or not, she shouldn't underestimate him. She has loved and she has lost, but she can still make explosions. She can still believe. She believes in him. She always will. It's always been the last thing to Kaneki for her. She has fallen - and there is no more turning back.

Fallen is the wind that howls his name, the spaces that he has left. Fallen is when she is thinking of him, so rarely, when his name slips through her mind and the numbness is forgotten, and she has no idea to react but to feel the hot burn in the stone where her heart is a cave and the cave of her heart swallows his memory so willingly it is delicious to revel in the sweetness of the memory called Kaneki Ken. Fallen is when she doesn't forget what they have fought for, what he has stood for, what he has sacrificed so much for. Fallen is when she regrets telling him that he will never walk alone, when she has to keep forcing herself to run away for the need of a duty to be fulfilled, when the water seems too near and it is tempting to go jump into the water, where the depths become you and darkness you are. Fallen she is, and fallen indeed.

Fallen it is to be a beast of a burden, to be a monster, and to know it is not his only undoing - but possibly, cannot be yours.


End file.
